Electron Psycho
by TermFan1980
Summary: AU. Takes place immediately after "Allison From Palmdale". Cameron has a split personality now, and John is caught between them. The 4th and final chapter is up now.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note:

Just my thoughts on what might happen if Cameron is still confused about whom she is, and what her purpose is. Takes place immediately after "Allison from Palmdale", and will be rendered AU as soon as episode 5 airs.

* * *

"That was my last 'get out of jail free'". Cameron sat in the passenger seat of the big black truck as John drove them both home.

Still red with anger at what had just ensued, John responded "Damn right." It was obvious he couldn't tell his mother or uncle about the events of the day; either one of them would immediately attempt to destroy her. In John's mind, that didn't seem like such a bad idea right now, but if she was to be destroyed, it would be on his terms, not theirs. "Where'd you get that?" The necklace on her chest was new, and furthermore, it was an excuse to temporarily distract his mind from the destruction of what he had once thought to be a friend.

Keeping her gaze on the road ahead, she answered, "I got it at this awesome thrift store in Echo Park."

Another lie. John had been tracking her all day, and knew she was nowhere near Echo Park. Why was she lying to him? She just nearly killed that other girl, but jewelry theft was something she was now secretive about?

John spent the next few minutes trying to come up with a possible motive for her lie. He also wondered how she could possibly forget that she was a machine. His train of thought was derailed when he saw Cameron reach into the glove box and pull out the 9mm Glock that was stored there. She had told him earlier that day that if she was going to kill him, he would not have time to ask about it. In this instance, he certainly wouldn't have had time to talk. He would be lucky if the whole process of her taking out the gun, racking the slide to chamber a round, and lifting it up to his head took more than 2 seconds.

At about one and a half seconds, he cranked the steering wheel sharply to the left. The g-forces threw Cameron against the passenger door, and the bullet that would have gone through his temple went through the roof of the pickup. John didn't waste another fraction of a second before he opened the door and bailed out onto the soft ground on the left side of the road. He tumbled a few times, twisting his ankle in the process. A twisted ankle and a few severe bruises were nothing compared to the injuries he would have sustained if he were in the truck that was now rolling down a steep embankment. His tumbling stopped in time for him to see the twisted metal wreckage that used to be his uncles truck finally come to a rest a couple hundred feet down the step grade.

Knowing he didn't have much time before the murderous cyborg would claw its way out of the mess, he pulled himself to his feet to get moving. A sharp pain shot up his leg as he realized his ankle was not in working order. The next thing he noticed were the taillights of a car whose driver had stopped after seeing the truck fly off the road.

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ankle, John hobbled along the side of the road toward the parked car. His mind was racing trying to come up with a believable excuse to leave the scene of the accident immediately in the person's car.

When the driver's door opened and a middle-aged woman stepped out, she said to the boy who was now at the rear bumper of her car, "Are you okay?"

John didn't have to act like he was in pain because he _was_ in pain, but he had to act like it was coming from other places. "N-No!" He clutched his ribs. "I have a broken ankle, and a busted rib...or two. I'm pretty sure I'm bleeding internally too." He keeled over the trunk of the car, propping himself up with one elbow, still holding his midsection with the other arm. "I need to get to a hospital immediately! Please! Drive me!"

In a state of shock, and without saying a word, the woman ran over to John to help walk to the passenger door. "Easy...easy" she said as she helped lower him into the seat, while John feigned rib injuries. "What about your car? Was there anyone else in it?"

"No. Just me. Forget about the car. I need a hospital. Please...just, drive."

It worked. The woman scurried back around to the driver's side, got in and took off down the road.

* * *

"Help!" A screaming voice came from the pile of twisted metal and rubber. "Someone get me out!"

Tears streamed down the face of the girl trapped in the steel cage that used to be a truck. Her one free arm pounded on some metal that was crumpled around her body while she frantically squirmed and writhed in place.

"Hold still, miss! We'll have you out of here in no time." One of the men from the emergency medical team tried to calm her and hold her steady while another employed the jaws-of-life on the truck. She did her best to calm herself and hold still while the hydraulic cutter snipped through the truck's unibody like construction paper.

"Take is easy miss; you may have broken bones, or internal injuries. Can you move your feet?" asked Greg, the lead EMT.

"Y-Yes." The frightened girl said as she began to move her legs and step out of the scrap heap.

Normally, Greg would have insisted that an accident victim stay still until they could delicately place her on a gurney and examine her in more detail. If she had a broken back, she could paralyze herself. But the girl in front of him stepped out of the car as easily as getting out of a lounge chair, and started walking about. She was pacing, holding her fists in her hair, crying.

"Where am I? How did I get here?"

"You're lucky to be alive, miss; and extremely lucky to have no injuries besides some torn clothes and a few scrapes...small ones at that."

She ignored the EMT and kept pacing and crying to herself, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home."

Greg put a comforting arm around the girl and said, "Okay. Okay. We'll get you home. You've been through a lot. Officer Reeds here will drive you home. There you can answer a few questions for her about what happened tonight." He and Officer Reeds both took one of her arms and helped walk her up the hill to the roadway where the squad car was parked.

Once at the top of the hill Officer Reeds opened the passenger door of the police car to let the girl sit down. She turned to Greg and asked "You sure she's fine to go home? That's a hell of a wreck down there" she gestured down the embankment.

"Million to one chance. She's fine. Must have an angel watching over her." Greg shrugged as he spoke.

Officer Reeds shook her head in bewilderment. She had seen some pretty bad wrecks where people had walked away, but nothing like this; especially the way she was trapped in the twisted metal. She looked over and watched the poor girl wipe her eyes with the torn sleeve of her shirt. "Yeah...more like a whole goddamned army of angels" she said under her breath as she bent down to talk to the passenger of her car.

"What's your name hun?"

"Allison. Young," she responded as though she had to think about what her last name was.

"Okay, Allison. I'll take you home now, but you have to tell me where home is."

Allison looked up at Officer Reeds with wet eyes and answered, "Palmdale."

"Palmdale?" She drew back a bit. "That's like 80 miles from here. What are you doing out here all by yourself so far from home?"

Her face began to clench up, and the tears started to pool again in her eyes. "I don't know. I can't remember. I just want to go home."

"Alright. I'll notify Palmdale local PD after I drop you off at home, and they will question you in the morning," she said as she closed the door and proceeded to walk around to the driver's side.

* * *

A/N: I'm trying to keep this one short and sweet so I can get it all written and posted soon. After watching Episode 4, I just had to write something about the Cameron/Allison headcase.

More to come...

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note:

I'm thinking this will be 3 or four chapters total. I know the chapters are shot, but instead of getting bogged down in a really long story and risking losing interest in it, I just have to get it out of my head and down on paper...so-to-speak.

* * *

"Thanks for the ride ma'am" John said as he exited the car onto the sidewalk at the front entrance to the hospital's emergency room.

"Hold on. I'll park the car and see that you get checked in," the woman said to John as he was limping in.

Stopping and half turning around, John called back, "Thanks, but I'll be fine from here. My mom will be here any minute."

"Are you sure? I could wait until she gets here," she offered.

"No, no," John insisted. He waived goodbye and said over his shoulder with an appreciative smile, "Thanks anyway. You've helped plenty."

_"Please don't let her follow me in. Please don't let her follow me in" _ John pleaded to whatever gods might be listening. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw her slowly pull her car away from the front entrance of the hospital, and watched the car drive out of the parking lot. He could now drop the act that his ribs were broken, though his ankle still hurt. That would slow him down, but being stuck in a hospital filling out paperwork for an Ace-bandage would be much slower. Plus, he assumed that a hospital would be one of the first places a Terminator would look for him after a car wreck.

John whipped out his cell phone and dialed his mother. He was dreading the conversation, but he would have to level with her and get her to pick him up.

"Mom?...yeah. I'm fine, sort of. ... ... I smashed the truck. ... ... ... No. She's not with me, thank God. ... I don't know; at the bottom of the ravine off the 101... ... ... I'm at the hospital... ...no. I said I'm fine. My ankle hurts. I think I twisted it, but that's it. ...I can explain later, just come and pick me up. Right now... Mom! I don't know how long it will be until she gets here. ... ... What do you mean, who?? Cameron! She's lost it again. She..."

Before he could say another word, Sarah responded with "I'll be there in a few minutes," and hung up. She was there in 7 minutes. It was a 15 minute drive at legal speeds.

* * *

"So Allison," Officer Reeds began, "what part of Palmdale are you from?" It was still an hour drive to Palmdale, so such details were not yet necessary, but she needed to break the silence that had been filling the car for the past 15 minutes.

Allison had remained silent, with the exception of a sniffle, or shaky and sharp inhale every so often. When the officer asked her the question, she lifted her head from its resting spot on the passenger window, and answered, "A half mile or so east of the lake."

Attempting to make conversation with her, Officer Reeds continued with small talk. "The lake huh? Does it have a nice beach? I bet the swimming is good there." When she did not receive a response for a few seconds, she took her eyes off the road for a moment to look over at her passenger. "Allison..." She stopped, startled when her eyes met the icy cold glare that the girl was giving her.

"I don't swim."

Feeling a slight shudder, Officer Reeds took a deep breath and attempted to continue. "Oh, well...what else do you..."

"Where's John Connor?" Cameron interrupted.

"What? Who? Who's John Connor?" said a confused Officer Reeds.

"I need to find John Connor. Tell me where he is," Cameron said, commandingly.

"Look, Allison, I don't know who or where John Connor is, but I'm sure we can find him. Is he a friend of yours?" The officer's voice was becoming more and more laden with frustration, and a bit of fear.

Cameron was unsure why the police officer had referred to her as "Allison", but she had determined that the officer's car and clothes were going to be much more useful to her than the person wearing them. With a fluid, but quick motion, Cameron unhooked the shotgun that was secured in the center of the dash, pumped it and pushed the muzzle into the soft flesh below Officer Reeds' ear.

"Allison!! Stop!!" were the last words of Officer Reeds.

* * *

Back at their house, Sarah listened to John explain the events of the day. He explained what he observed as a split personality in Cameron.

"One side of her is this sweet, innocent girl who can laugh, cry, feel fear and..." John swallowed hard, "she doesn't even know she's a machine. She calls herself 'Allison'. The other side is the homicidal sociopath that tried to kill me a few days ago...and a half hour ago. I think the Cameron we _know_ is some kind of mixture of the two."

"I told you that metal bitch is nothing but a lying, killing..."

"Derek!" Sarah cut him off. "You're not helping." Sarah turned back to her son, "John, we need to destroy her. You KNOW this. No more fooling around."

John knew this was true. To add insult to injury, Derek interjected, "That's what we SHOULD have done last week! We had her there, in a bed of thermite, and punk-ass here starts her back up again because he thinks Terminators are pets!"

John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't know what was worse: Derek rubbing it in, or the fact that he knew he deserved it.

"She'll be coming here," Sarah finally spoke. "If we set up some kind of trap, we can beat her."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note:

Bah... I wanted to get this fic finished before Monday night's episode airs and makes my story meaningless, but oh well...I already warned that it was going to be AU. Anyway...the McGolden Light was flowing and so was the creativity, so it turned out a bit longer than I had originally anticipated.

Here's Chapter 3.

* * *

Almost like waking from a bad dream, Allison began frantically looking around, trying to figure out what was going on. One of the first things she noticed was that she was now driving the car she had been riding in just an instant--or so it seemed to her--ago. She lifted her foot off the gas pedal, wondering where she was going in such a hurry, and the speedometer started to fall... 125... 120... 115.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked out loud.

She was sure she couldn't be much more freaked out, but that notion was quickly proven false when she finally noticed the loud noise coming from just above her head. It was the sound of heavy wind noise, with a slight whistle to it, kind of like air being blown over a bottle but much higher pitched. It didn't take her long to figure out that the noise was being created by the air rushing through several small holes in the roof. She reached up to feel the holes with her hands, and she found that there were a couple dozen small holes, maybe a quarter inch in diameter. When she touched the holes, her fingers also felt a sticky, wet substance that seemed to be not only by the holes, but everywhere on the headliner of the car. Her breathing got faster and heavier as her stress level increased. She flicked on the dome light, which allowed her to see that the substance was blood, and it was spattered on every surface on her side of the car. Almost simultaneously, she saw the shotgun lying across her lap, and that she was wearing a police uniform.

Her scream was drowned out by the sound of the tires locking up and screeching across the asphalt at 100 miles per hour when she stood on the brakes in a panic. As the car finally came to a halt, and the smell of burned rubber and cooked brakes invaded her nostrils, she opened the door to vomit on the road. To her surprise, she could not vomit. It was like having the dry heaves, but not even as much since she had no stomach to begin with, so she just gagged.

"What the hell is happening to me?!" she cried between gags.

She sat in the car for a minute trying to figure out where she was, how she got there, where she was going, and why. She had no answers. She could only remember being trapped in a smashed truck, saved by some EMTs, driven home by a police officer, then a flash, and then she was driving the car in the opposite direction. She had been dealing with memory blackouts for the past day or so, but this time she was knew something really bad had happened. She looked at the pin on her shirt that read "Reeds".

_"Oh my god. That is the name of the officer that was driving me home!" _she thought to herself. _"What have I done? I need help," _she though, but had no one to turn to. She was all alone, and the officer that was supposed to be helping her was apparently spread all over the roof of the car.

_"That BOY! Oh...what was his name??" _Her mind was racing. "_James...Joe...JOHN! John Baum! He said he could 'fix' me. I should have listened to him. How the hell am I supposed to find him now though?" _

An idea struck her and she typed "John Baum" into the computer mounted in the car. After a moment of searching and compiling, the screen displayed a picture of John, a home address, and a phone number.

With shaking hands, she dialed the number that was displayed on the screen.

* * *

"Ow! Son of a..." Derek shouted when a small bolt of blue electricity arced from the wire to his fingertips.

"You might want to shut off the circuit breaker before rigging the wiring for the trap, Derek," John said, almost laughing.

"Yeah. Right," he responded embarrassingly while he shook his hand some. "You know which one it is?"

John raised his voice so Derek could hear him down in the basement, "I'm not sure! Are they labeled?"

"No," Derek shouted back. "I'll just throw all of them!"

A moment later, John and Sarah were both sitting in the dark. Together, they stymied a laugh when they heard a crash and some swearing as Derek apparently walked into a pile of junk in the pitch black basement. Their mood was broken when the phone rang. With the power out, there was no noise, and nothing to see, so the phone's ring seemed louder than usual.

"Who the hell could that be?" Sarah whispered.

"Who do you think?" John responded. "Why are we whispering?"

Sarah shrugged, even though John could not see her.

"Hello?" Sarah said after putting the phone to her ear.

"Who is this? I need to talk to John Baum! Is he there? John Baum?" a frantic voice on the other end queried.

"Who wants to know?"

"Tell him it's Allison. F-From the half-way house. Please!"

Sarah tossed the receiver to John. "It's for you."

"Cameron?" he said sheepishly into the phone.

"Who? No. I don't know who Cameron is. I'm Allison. I need your help!" she said, sobbing. "I'm sorry I didn't let you help me earlier. I'm sorry I pushed you away."

"Okay, calm down...Allison," John said delicately, trying to sooth the hysterical girl on the other end. "Where are you?"

"I...I'm pulled over on the side of the highway...101 I think. I'm in a police car...and...I think I might have hurt someone!" Her voice was trembling as she tried to speak coherently. "There's blood all over, and..." she put her hand up over her eyes and cried into it.

John's mouth hung slightly open as he listened to this machine, this Terminator cry into the phone. It was obvious to him now that Cameron had killed a police officer, and something triggered her Allison persona to take control again. "Oh my god," he whispered so faintly, only he could hear it.

John had to hold the phone away from his ear when Allison's voice cracked "I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING!! I would never hurt a fly! Why is this happening to me?! What am I supposed to do now?"

John's heartstrings were being pulled several directions at once. How many other people had she hurt in the last 45 minutes? _"That poor police officer...never saw it coming." _He ran his hand through his hair, contemplating the situation further. _"Poor Allison...she has no idea." _He had to stop his train of thought for a moment. Poor Allison? How could he possibly feel bad for a program? Because that's all Allison was; a program in Cameron's chip. It was asinine, yet her cries and hysterics were so realistic, so visceral, that he found himself becoming choked up listening to her.

"A-Allison..." his own voice becoming more unhinged, "Listen to me. You have to..." His voice froze when he heard the sound of an automatic pistol being cocked. "Allison! What are you doing?!"

"I'm sorry, John. It's the only way I can be sure I won't hurt anyone again. Goodbye," she said solemnly as she brought the barrel of the police issue 9mm pistol to her temple.

"NO! ALLISON! Stop! That won't work!" He dropped the phone shortly after he heard the gunshot. Turning to his mother he said, "Holy shit. She just shot herself." John had a sudden flashback of watching the girl at his previous high-school throw herself off the roof of the gymnasium. "How could she..."

"Snap out of it, John!" Sarah shouted. She's not a person, and she's certainly not dead! We could only be so lucky!"

"Mom! You didn't hear her." John pleaded. His voice fighting a huge lump in his throat. "She...she was crying. Like, _really_ crying. I can't explain it, but..."

"Damnit John!" Reaching over to grab John by the shoulders and give him a good shake. "It. Was. An. ACT!" she yelled and shook, trying to reign in his runaway emotional state. "Just like when I pinned her between those trucks. It's all a trick! Her tears, her cries...Allison herself is nothing more than an infiltration tactic built into Cameron's killer brain!"

John didn't know what to think anymore. He didn't want to think anymore. He didn't want to consider the implications of a computer that could feel things, and the complex ethics involved with shutting down such a sentient entity. He just knew that he had to stop Cameron. "Fine," he finally responded to his mother. "We'll destroy her." He cleared his throat in attempt to shake loose any melancholy, and called to Derek, "Hey, you got that thing rigged up yet?"

* * *

"...Goodbye." She said as she pulled the trigger on the pistol, and everything went dark.

Her head snapped to the left so hard that her scalp collided with and shattered the driver's window. Her whole body went limp; her head dangling out of the broken window; her hand dropping to the seat and the gun bouncing out of it onto the floor. A few seconds passed by before she opened her eyes again.

_Rebooting..._

_Systems analysis:_

_Chip integrity compromised._

_Damage to right cranial armor panel. 87 percent intact._

She slowly sat up straight, with perfect posture, and began scanning her surroundings. Thoroughly confused as to why the vehicle was now stopped on the side of the road, Cameron began reviewing her recent memory records.

_427.65 seconds unaccounted for. Memory sectors 1A43Ex52 through 1A46Bx47 not responding. Formatting and flagging defective sectors._

Cameron focused on the police computer screen, reading John's address. "Excellent." She then put the car back into gear and continued her mission.

* * *

A/N:

I probably would have been done with this fic tonight if I had just written the end how I had planned it, but I felt the need to add in an additional scene that touched on the inner struggle John is going through.

P.S. I'm trying not to make my story read like a screenplay or script, but I think all my creative writing is doomed to sound like bullet-pointed lists. I blame all my years of writing technical engineering reports. ;) Let me know what you think about either the story itself, or my writing technique. Thanks.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note:

Sorry it took so long to update...I was out of town all week last week.

And now I present to you the exciting conclusion of "Electron Psycho".

* * *

"How do we know which one will be...in control when she shows up here?" inquired Sarah.

"Doesn't matter. Bitch is going down either way," Derek scowled.

John shot Derek a scornful look. "If it's Allison, we may be able to talk her down, and convince her to let us fix..."

Derek cut John off by pumping his shotgun. "Talk is cheap, and there's no fix like a 12 gauge slug to the face."

"Derek," John was beginning to become annoyed with Derek's attitude, "If she electrocutes herself on the door that we've wired up, we can easily remove her chip again. I need to look at her chip with my computer to try to figure out what happened. There could be vital information on it that would be very useful in the future."

Derek loaded another shell into the gun's magazine. "I'm not making any promises, John."

"You don't have to make promises. Just follow orders."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Orders? So _you're_ giving orders now??"

"In case you've forgotten, I _am_ John Connor, and I..."

Their bickering was ended when a police car pulled into the driveway.

"She's here!" Sarah shouted in a whisper. "Get into position!"

With their weapons locked and loaded, they all took cover hiding behind something. Sarah hid around the corner in the kitchen, John behind her, and Derek leaning up against the wall directly to the right of the front door with his shotgun drawn.

Cameron walked up to the front door as silent as a cat. The first thing she noticed was that the doormat she was standing on was soaking wet. It had not rained that day, so she immediately knew something was amiss. Recalling being electrocuted twice--once in the resistance fighter's safe house, and once in the church--she suspected a trap. Placing her hand close to the doorknob, she could feel the electromagnetic radiation of the 120 volts of alternating current it was charged with.

_"What the hell is she doing??" _Derek though. Wondering whyCameron hadn't opened the door yet. _"Did the tin can forget how to open a door?"_

Immediately after finishing that thought, the doorknob exploded into the room, along with scores of wood splinters scattering through the air when a shotgun blast ripped through the door. After that, the cyborg's foot shoved the door so hard that it swung around and broke off it's hinges.

She slowly crept into the house, scanning the dark inside from left to right. When she finally turned her head fully to the right, she was staring into the barrel of Derek's shotgun. Before she could react, a large slug of lead was driven into her right eye. The force of the impact knocked her on her backside.

Derek expected the killing machine to immediately get back up and attack him, so he was struck with slight puzzlement when the girl just sat there and began looking around like it was confused.

_"Oh dear God...now what's going on? My eye hurts. I can't see out of my right eye!" _Allison used her hand to rub her blinded eye, and shrieked in horror when she felt the mangled mess of metal, glass and sticky blood-like substance where her eye should have been. "John! Help me!" She couldn't see John anywhere, but she had no other recourse. She was in a state of panic, which was worsened when she saw Derek pointing the shotgun at her. She gasped and turned her body away from Derek, attempting to get up and run, but a second slug ripped away the flesh from the side of her head, exposing and breaking open her CPU port cover.

She landed on her chest with an "ommph!"

"John! Who is this man?!" She was whimpering and crying, her face half buried in the carpet. "Why are you doing this? I never meant to hurt anyone! I need you help, John! PLEASE!"

"John!" Derek yelled. "Get over here with the needle-nose pliers! Her chip is exposed! Now!!"

John was mesmerized by the distressed girl on the floor. Why was this so hard for him to watch? He knew it was a cyborg, one that had tried to kill him more than once. He knew her pleas were just an act--at least that's what he _wanted_ to believe. That's what he _had_ to believe. If he allowed himself to think for a second that this "Allison" persona was some real girl trapped in the mind of a computer, a true ghost in the machine, he would hesitate, which could get himself killed.

Allison tried to pick herself up from the floor, but when she was in mid-pushup, the head of a twenty pound sledge hammer was swiftly brought down between her shoulder blades. Her face slammed into the ground, hard.

Sarah lifted the sledge hammer and wound up to hit her once more if she tried to get up again. "John Connor! Get off your ass and get over here. NOW!!"

"Connor?" Allison said softly, recalling a name from her past. "John Connor?" She rolled her head to the side so her good eye could see the boy approaching her. She hadn't realized it previously, but John Baum _was_ John Connor. He was much younger, and not scarred and battle-worn, but it was definitely him. A feeling of hope coursed through her, followed immediately by an overwhelming feeling of betrayal. How could the John Connor she knew allow this to happen, especially to her?

"John?" Her tears of fear had become tears of heartbreak. "John, why are you doing this to me?" She was no longer struggling to get up from the floor. Her body just lay there limp and slightly shaking from the weeping and sniveling coming from her torn-up face.

"Hold still, Allison," John told her in a comforting voice as he bent down with the pliers in his hand. He had to push himself to overcome the guilt and regret for what he was about to do.

"John, what are you doing? It hurts, John." Her voice was getting softer. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't..." her voice stopped, along with any and all movement in her body once her chip was pulled.

Everyone breathed a large sigh of relief when the cyborg was out of commission. "Give me that sledgehammer," Derek said to Sarah.

She knew what he meant to do with it, and nodded when she handed the hammer to Derek without question. When Derek grabbed Cameron's hand and started dragging her body down into the basement, John began protesting. "Wait. What are you doing?"

"Making sure this thing can never be repaired again," he replied as he pushed the body down the flight of stairs, and walked casually walked down after it.

John's voice was filling with worry as he continued, "But...wait. Maybe I can fix her chip on my computer." Sarah grabbed his shoulder as he started walking after Derek. She didn't say anything; just held on to him as he tried to run after Derek and stop what he was about to do. "Derek! Don't do this!" He struggled harder, but Sarah just held tighter. "Let go of me!" his voice cracked.

Derek stared down at the machine on the concrete basement floor. Her head was turned so that the unharmed side of her face was up. Derek hesitated while looking at the angelic brown eye staring blankly off into space. These things were so incredibly lifelike. He could see why John was so fond of Cameron, and why he so desperately wanted to fix her; to bring her back. Using the toe of his boot, he turned her head the other direction, exposing the side of her face which had been partially blown away from the shotgun. The exposed metal skeleton told the true story. No matter how good these things were at fooling people, no matter how good they could pretend to be human, they were still cold killing machines.

He raised the sledge hammer over his head, and brought it down with vicious fury upon Cameron's head. The coltan enriched titanium alloy that her skull was made out of was strong, but not indestructible. The massive hammerhead bounced off the shiny metal skull, but not without leaving a small dent.

He brought the hammer down on it again. And again. And again.

"This one's for Mom!" smack

"This one's for Dad!" smack

After a couple dozen hits, Cameron's head was deforming, and a large crack had formed down the middle, which widened with every blow.

"And this one is for Klye!!" He swung the hammer so hard that he pulled a muscle in his back. When the twenty pound brick of forged steel collided with the cyborg's weakening skull one last time, it split the shell open like a coconut, shattering circuit boards and electronic sensors, and rendering what used to be Cameron's head into a pile of unrecognizable metal, blood and hair.

* * *

John spent the next couple hours modifying the computer he had built to read Vick's chip so that it would interface with Cameron's. The chips were very similar, but not identical. Cameron's had two more pin-out contacts, and was slightly larger in size. They functioned the same however, once he managed to hook it all up. He went to work on this project as soon as he could, for two reasons. For one, his curiosity was overwhelming him. He had to find out what was happening in Cameron's digital, schizophrenic, psychotic mind. The second reason was simply to occupy himself so he wouldn't keep replaying the sound of Derek pounding his former companion's head into scrap.

Once he finally got everything working, he began searching the visual records of Cameron. Most of the more recent memories were nothing more than a view out of their windows, sweeping back and forth like a surveillance camera. He should have expected that, as Cameron spent the majority of her time just standing guard at the house.

One of the more recent records showed a handgun coming into the field of view, and aiming directly at his own head as he was driving the truck. _"Jesus,"_ he thought as he watched the gun fire and miss his head by a very narrow margin, realizing just how close he had come to death earlier that day.

When the display started to show the barrel of a shotgun being lifted to the head of Officer Reeds, he quickly shut it off. Watching the brutal execution of a police officer was not something he wanted to witness right now, or ever.

He skipped around watching video records from different timeframes, hoping to find some clue as to why she might have a split personality. Eventually he came across a video of what appeared to be Cameron herself, sitting in a chair, with a bright light shining in her face.

_"She must have been looking into a mirror or something," _John thought at first. But that didn't quite make sense either, because the person in the view looked "away from the camera" so to speak. If it were a mirror, she would always be looking directly back at herself.

"Tell me your name," said a voice on the video.

John watched as the girl in view refused, and was then punished and laser tattooed with a bar code on her arm. When the girl said her name was Allison Young, John recoiled. _"oh no...Allison wasn't just another personality, she was another person."_ John ran his hands through his hair as he contemplated this discovery.

He continued to watch for several more hours. The Terminator asked about every detail of Allison's life, from her favorite color, to the order in which she tied her shoes. They were gathering enough information on her, so that Cameron could essentially _become_ Allison.

* * *

At 6am Sarah slowly opened the door into John's room to find him asleep at his computer desk, with videos of Allison's interrogation still playing. It didn't take Sarah long to figure it all out either, so she sat and watched, captivated, and let John sleep for now. Sarah watched for about an hour, and the date code on the videos progressed about a week. Sometimes several days would pass between questions. _"That poor girl" _she though. Sarah couldn't imagine the torture, both physical and psychological that poor Allison had gone through. She answered the questions with such a monotone voice. It was the voice of someone who had given up all hope of survival, and was completely empty inside. She was nearly catatonic in her posture as well. Dead and lifeless. Sarah became choked up when the teary-eyed girl in the view said, "Please...just kill me and get it over with."

Sarah was about to wake up John when the questioner in the video asked, "What is your relationship to John Connor?"

_"My relationship to John Connor?" Allison repeated the question, buying herself time._

_"Yes, John Connor," the questioner/Cameron repeated._

_"He is our leader. Our commander. Our inspiration to resist you metal motherf.."_

_"NO!" Cameron shouted. "Based on my analysis of your heart rate, eye contact, and voice intonation, you are not telling me the whole truth. What are you hiding?"_

_Allison huffed, "What is there to hide? You already know he's the resistance leader. He taught me, as well as everyone else, how to fight."_

_"Enough." Cameron signaled to a skinless T-800 terminator. The T-800 held Allison in place as Cameron placed the point of a knife on the back of the girl's hand. _

_Allison began breathing heavily, trying not to scream as the female cyborg began to apply pressure on the knife. She shut her eyes so she would not watch the blade sink into her flesh, between her metacarpal hand bones. _

_"Stop withholding information and the pain will stop, Allison," Cameron deadpanned. _

_Allison summoned the courage and nerve to look Cameron in the eyes and say, "I'd tell you to go to hell, but you'd have to have a soul first."_

_Cameron responded to this retort by twisting the knife. When the stainless steel blade began to spread the bones in Allison's hand, her ability to hold back was defeated, and she let out a blood curdling scream. "STOP!! I can't take this anymore!"_

_"Tell me about your relationship to John Connor, beyond the fact that he is your leader," Cameron demanded as she continued to twist._

_Allison screamed, "I LOVE HIM!! I LOVE JOHN CONNOR AND HE LOVES ME!!"_

Sarah put her hands over her mouth and gasped. _"John must never know this,"_ She thought to herself. John's mental stability was hanging by a thread as it was, and learning that Cameron was based on his future love would surely put him over the edge.

The shouting from the video had stirred John awake. He picked his head up off of the desk, and rubbed his eyes.

Seeing that her son was waking up, she had to act fast so that he would not find out what was playing on the computer screen. Reaching over John, she yanked Cameron's chip out of the interface module. The screen went blank, and John roused himself to full alertness. "Mom? What are you doing? Be careful. Unplugging it while it's hot might damage it!"

"I'm sorry John, but this is for your own good." She sat up with the chip in her hand, and ran downstairs.

"Wait, what?" John shot up form his chair and ran after her.

Sarah was a couple seconds ahead of John, and when he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw Sarah closing the door to the microwave and hitting start.

"NO! MOM! What are you doing?!" John cried out as he saw the chip through the window in the door.

Her arm reached out and grabbed John's wrist as he was lunging at the button to open the microwave door, but she wouldn't have needed to. The chip was already sparking and smoking after only a couple seconds.

He was too late to save his friend--or the closest thing he'd had in his young adult life. John just stood there and watched the small blue arcs of electricity jump around on the chip, as the oven became hazier with smoke. Never before had the scent of burning silicon smelled so foul to John. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse his mother for what she'd done, but he just watched the contents of the microwave for a few more seconds, until his vision was blurry with tears. Then, instead of shouting or running, he calmly turned around and walked out of the kitchen into the livingroom.

"John..." Sarah hadn't before seen her son so devastated, and it broke her heart that she was the cause, regardless of the fact that she had to do it for his own good.

"John, I'm sorry. I had to..."

"No," he said, wiping his eyes and swallowing his emotions. "If this is war, it's best I get used to the concept of collateral damage. I have to get used to sending my friends to their death. No exceptions. If I start allowing myself to second guess these things, we may lose. In order to defeat them, I have to think like them."

_"He thinks this was some sort of life lesson." _This wasn't her intention at all. The emotionless delivery of John's words made Sarah choke on the lump in her throat. She didn't want him to become cold and calculating. That wasn't how it was supposed to work. In order to save the human race, he shouldn't have to sacrifice his own humanity.

* * *

Closing notes:

Well, I finally complete my first multicahpter story. What did you all think? I'd love to hear your comments.

Thanks for reading!


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